There is another large related group of "hard times" songs, apart from the Foster song and its varieties, that are difficult to find in DT. Some come up if bits of the title are put in the Lyrics search. A Forum search is less helpful. Entering the full title may bring up an error message and using part of the first line doesn't work either. These are:
Hard Times (Cheating). This and the following are related to "Hard Times," published in 19th C. by Deming and others (see American Memory) Also called "The Rigs of the Times."
Hard, Hard Times (Canadian version)
The Mormon Battalion Song (In These Hard Times) (1881) Battalion
Courting the Widow's Daughter (late- 1917?) Tune old.
etc.